A holiday turned into a nightmare when Costa crooks stole a family's cash.

The Sewells were sunbathing in Benidorm, on Spain's Costa Blanca, when thieves used duplicate keys to get into their flat.

When the family returned to the Monver apartments they noticed nothing wrong, until they got changed to go out.

Tony Sewell, 43, a fireman, from Blyth, said: "As the apartment seemed so secure we left our valuables, including money and travellers' cheques, hidden in drawers.

"There was a video monitoring entry system, two locked doors in the lobby and locks on our door.

"When my wife Janet and I went to get our cash for the evening out it was gone. They took #900 in pesetas, travellers' cheques and the English money. They took a visa card, a video camera and the bairns' camera but left the jewellery. It ruined the holiday. I was ready to come back on the second day.

"We want to alert people that this kind of thing can happen. I don't know what we would have done for money if my dad hadn't been able to give us some."

Mr Sewell's dad, Eddie, 66, who lives in Spain for part of the year, had arranged the apartment for his son and daughter-in-law and their twins Scott and David, 12.

Mr Sewell arranged for the locks to be changed on the doors. He then spent days dealing with police trying to explain that his family had been burgled.

"The police said there was no forced entry but I told them someone had keys," he said. "The agent who managed the flats said it had never happened before but a Dutch couple said it happened to another family three weeks previously."